Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- "French draw sharp distinction between (1) US intervention in present circumstances with Viet Minh bolstered by Chinese Communist materiel, technicians and possibly scattered troops and (2) US reaction against full-scale air attack mounted from Communist Chinese bases."
Dillon said that, for the French, the U.S. preconditions applied in the first case but not the second, wherein only Congressional authorization was understood to stand in the way of direct U.S. action. Ely, the Ambassador reported, had all along believed he had Radford's personal assurance of an American reaction to Chinese air attack in the Delta. Now, the French wanted to know if they could count on instant U.S. interdiction of a CCAF strike. The Ambassador closed by reminding the Department of the incalculable harm to NATO, to the whole U.S. position in Western Europe, and to the U.S. position against communist worldwide strategy if a Chinese attack were not met.22
- j. U.S. Repeats Initial Reply
Despite Dillon's protestations, the Department stuck by its initial position of May 15, namely, that Chinese air attack was unlikely and that the U.S. would meet that problem when it arose.23 Clearly, the U.S. was unwilling to make any advance commitments which the French could seize upon for political advantage without having to give a quid pro quo in their Indochina policy. Eisenhower affirmed this view and went beyond it: the conditions for united action, he said, applied equally to Chinese direct and indirect involvement in Indochina. The U.S. would make no unilateral commitment against any contingency, including overt, unprovoked Chinese aggression, without firm broad allied support.24
- k. Other Obstacles to U.S.–French Accord
There were other obstacles to U.S.–French agreement, as brought into the open with a memorandum to the President from Foreign Minister Bidault on June 1.25 One was American insistence on French Assembly approval of a government request for U.S. intervention. The French cabinet considered that to present a program of Allied involvement to the Assembly except under the circumstance of "a complete failure of the Geneva Conference" attributable to the communists "would be literally to wish to overthrow the [French] Government." A second area of continuing disagreement concerned the maintenance of French forces in the field and the nature of a U.S. commitment. The French held that the U.S. could bypass Congress by committing perhaps one division of Marines without a declaration of war.26 Although assured that the Marines, being part of the Navy, would be included in a U.S. air–naval commitment, the French wanted much more.
